MiCo-Milano Congressi hosted the sixteenth edition of the IAB Forum, the first Italian event on digital and the fourth in Europe. National and international guests, celebrities, managers and specialists alternated during the conference, to look for new perspectives for the digital and tech world, which pervade our everyday life. "I am everywhere - Challenges of mobile society" is in fact the claim of this edition, focused precisely on how we are present everywhere, even without realizing it. We are in a society in constant motion, but we must not lose its most important element, the man, creating new challenges for a digital humanism that puts its foundations clear values for a shared and clear ethic, where transparency it is not only a duty but a necessary basis for building profitable and lasting relationship of trust.
The world of digital advertising is in continuous and irrepressible expansion, growing in double figures of + 11%, about 2.97 billion revenue. To date it is one third of Italian investments and is second only to television investments. But if the television - with a flourishing 45%, together with the radio - 4.2% resilient medium, is able to provide refined measurements for data more than reality-related, so much so that digital still proceeds to estimates and evaluations, however approximate. Considering that the press is the most suffering medium in terms of investments - with a -7.8% - and the other media have remained however overwhelmed by the new possibilities that have allowed the lowering of the entry thresholds for advertising also to SMEs , television and web collect as much as 77% of advertising sales in Italy, which grew by a total of 1.7%.
Regarding digital communication, each sector operates differently. The distribution dedicates a good 44.3% of the investments to the case, followed by 37.5% and 37.1% respectively of finance and cars. Less than thirty are dedicated to clothing with a 29.2%, tourism & travel with a 28.8%, food with 23.6% and drinks & spirits to 21.0%.
The display format is confirmed as the flagship one, with 62% of the market. For display, we consider all the banner, the spaces in social media, Native formats and videos. And the latter two are the fastest growing formats: the videos are developed for 24% while the Native touch even 30%. On the other hand, the growth of search is 28%, while the classified is growing at 7% and the e-mail of 3%.
Although the digital world is increasingly decisive for the advertising industry, however, I remain a negative: Google and Facebook have a monopoly, holding three quarters of the market, which stood at 71% in 2017. The OTT oligarchy - over the top - on the one hand is the result of their intuitions and development strategies, but it is a strong limitation to the market, especially for children. Here, then, that the reflection on transparency by these great players serves for proper management of the market, especially as regards the measurements and the validations of investments, combined with the new regulations for the privacy of end users.
Users who with their daily practices redraw the use that is made of the network. In September 2018, 39 million Italians surfed the Internet, with a 3% increase compared to the previous year. More than half of the Italian population over 18 - 53% - access both PC and mobile, while 36% access only from mobile. The comparison with other countries settles on similar percentages, where the US access by more than 78%, the United Kingdom for 55% and Spain for 63%. The platforms themselves, however, have new features compared to last year, with the desktop down with a -4% in use, compared to a 21% instead of mobile growth. This is also because on mobile, 62% of the time is mostly spent on apps, often those of OTTs that monopolize the market. Depending on the device, it also changes the content that best appreciates: in fact, messaging, social and entertinment are mostly used on mobile, involving respectively 22, 18 and 11 million users, unlike for example the news that involve more through the desktop.
Digital advertising is therefore increasingly faced with new future challenges. Users move between different platforms, with interests for different devices and times of use depending on the theme. The giants of the web are the master but can no longer escape the need for transparency that investors and users need to build stronger relationships of trust. A new ethics must lead the development of digital communication to continue to develop in the best possible way.
E-Business Consulting, a web agency specialized since 2003 in Digital Marketing, is able to design a customized Mobile Marketing and Video Advertising strategy for any type of business, making its decades of experience and expertise available to customers.
